If you’re looking for money to start a new business, it helps to be white, male, attractive-looking, and living in a place like Boston or San Francisco. Better still, you want to have gone to a top-ranked university. People with these sorts of profiles win the lion’s share of funding from VC firms. In 2014, Harvard Business School academic Alison Wood Brooks conducted a series of experiments designed to tease out the biases funders have toward certain groups. She found that male entrepreneurs Read the full story

AI is in desperate need of designers–in part, because machine learning products often originate in the world of research, where design principles are rarely applied. Closing the gap between researchers and designers is the goal of Google’s People + AI Research (PAIR) initiative, which launched earlier this summer. PAIR aims to establish design principles for AI systems and build tools for designers and developers as AI moves quickly from the research lab into the products we use every day. At Read the full story

Silicon Valley Is Rethinking Screen Culture–And So Is Nest
Fast Company

The world has changed a lot since 2010, when the smart home company Nest hit the scene. The same year, Apple unveiled the iPad. The internet of things was the hot new buzzword. Nest launched its first smart thermostat the next year, featuring a brilliantly luminous screen that set the temperature in bold type. It was a conspicuous set piece for your wall. Fast-forward to 2017. Many consumers are questioning whether bringing more screens into the home is a good thing. Companies like Amazon, Read the full story

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About Author

Andrew LeVasseur is head of the Experience Design/Creative Technology track at VCU Brandcenter http://brandcenter.vcu.edu where he teaches BRAND communications, experience DESIGN and creative TECHNOLOGY.